Copyright © 1997 RON ROCCO All Rights Reserved

Garden of Steel for Union Square

This work is proposed as an installation work for the NYC Subway Station at 14th Street /Union Square Park in Manhattan

The work is an installation of seven panels photographically etched with the patterns of tree branches and leaf clusters. It is composed of circuit board, a copper-coated laminate over fiberglass. This is a material which I have used extensively. It is durable, can be obtained in thicknesses rigid enough to suspend and is readily cut and drilled as is necessary. The copper surface can be removed with acid to compose any pattern, revealing an underlying translucent fiberglass layer. The panels would be lighted from behind, the light passing through the fiberglass layer to suggest ambient daylight. Other lighting along the platform would reflect off the copper, coloring the surface of the paving with the warm hue of the unetched, polished metal. In this way, the vista presented to the viewer would be that of an small glade of trees in a forest of steel.